James Craig: The Circus

‘Fine.’ O’Dowd cleared his throat. ‘So, stepping back for a minute, what do we know? What are the known knowns, as it were?’

Get on with it . Edgar impatiently tapped his foot on the rather threadbare carpet.

Taking a deep breath, O’Dowd ploughed on. ‘It seems clear that the row over the involvement of the police in phone hacking undertaken by certain journalists is not going to go away.’

‘We know that,’ Miller grunted.

‘More specifically, it has not been defused by our decision to set up the Meyer investigation.’

Our decision? Edgar wondered. It was your idea to pluck some provincial plod from obscurity and place him in charge of the biggest and most high-profile police internal investigation since the Corruption and Dishonesty Prevention Review Board in the 1990s. However, it was too late to quibble about that now. They were all in it together. ‘That doesn’t mean that creating a taskforce under Chief Inspector Meyer was not the right thing to do.’

‘No.’

‘It was important that Operation Redhead was set up so that people can perceive that we are taking this matter seriously.’

Perceive being the key word.

‘Indeed,’ O’Dowd smiled. ‘But it is going to be a slow burn. And don’t forget, Operation Redhead comes after Operation Tulisa and Operation Elf. It’s not the first time we’ve tried to sort this thing out.’

‘What he’s trying to say,’ Miller interrupted, ‘is that they need to get on with it. There have been less than two dozen arrests so far. People want to see more action. The FBI are even saying that they will step in if we drop the ball again.’

‘Jesus!’ Edgar exclaimed, coughing as a mouthful of cognac went down the wrong way. ‘We don’t want that.’

‘No, we don’t,’ O’Dowd agreed. ‘But, by the same token, we have to follow due process. Meyer has to proceed with care. He cannot afford to do anything that might prejudice any potential future criminal investigation.’

‘Why do you think we put him in charge in the first place?’ Miller grumbled. ‘We don’t want any of this getting to court — on either side of the Atlantic.’

‘Due process,’ O’Dowd repeated.

‘In the meantime,’ Miller went on, ‘we ourselves are getting nowhere, the Americans are threatening to stick their oar in, and the expenses keep racking up.’

Edgar made a face. ‘How much is all this costing?’

‘The bill for Operation Redhead is already more than four and a half million pounds,’ O’Dowd said, ‘including almost a million spent on overtime. The current run rate is more than three hundred and fifty thousand pounds a month.’

‘So?’ The last thing the PM wanted was a lecture on finances. It was only the little people who had to worry about money.

A pained expression appeared on O’Dowd’s face. ‘Well,’ he said gently, ‘it will have to come out of someone ’s budget.’

‘Pfff. .’ Edgar made a gesture as if he was swatting a wasp away from in front of his face. ‘The Commissioner will have to raid one of the MPS’s slush funds.’

‘Slush funds?’ Now the civil servant looked offended.

‘Or whatever,’ Edgar huffed. If that fellow Chester Forsyth-Walker, head of the Metropolitan Police, doesn’t have some cash stashed away for a rainy day, he thought, then more fool him. ‘Just make sure that it gets dealt with.’

‘Of course.’ O’Dowd paused. ‘Then there’s one other thing that you have to bear in mind. .’

Edgar sighed theatrically. That was the big problem with his job: there was always one more thing . ‘Which is?’

‘Which is the potential for Chief Inspector Meyer himself to become something of a liability.’

‘What?’ Edgar gripped his snifter so tightly that his knuckles went white. He looked at Miller. ‘I thought you told me he was the most boring provincial plod you could find.’

Miller shrugged. ‘Apparently there is a relationship with a Community Liaison Officer that we didn’t know about.’

‘Neither did his wife,’ O’Dowd added. ‘And there are dalliances with a couple of civilians to consider too.’

‘Women?’ Edgar asked, as a whole range of possible scenarios began whizzing through his mind.

‘Yes,’ Miller nodded. ‘Nothing exotic, I’m glad to say.’

‘Well,’ Edgar said, ‘I suppose that’s something, at least.’

‘The boy likes playing away.’ Miller grinned. ‘Seems he just can’t keep it in his trousers.’

‘That’s one of the risks when you pluck this kind of person from obscurity,’ O’Dowd said, ‘and they go straight under the glare of the media spotlight. There’s always something to be dug up — skeletons in the cupboard and all that. You never know for sure if they can survive the scrutiny.’

‘Mm.’ Despite the news about Meyer, the cognac was beginning to make Edgar feel a little mellow. ‘Should I sack him, do you think?’

‘I would try and avoid that, if possible,’ O’Dowd replied. ‘It would undermine the legitimacy of the whole process at a very early stage.’

‘And we wouldn’t want to do that, would we?’ Edgar’s stomach had started rumbling again and he was distracted by the thought of tucking into a hearty plate of spotted dick.

‘No, we wouldn’t.’

‘Anyway,’ Miller interjected, ‘we’ve checked out every Chief Constable in England and Wales, and none of them come without baggage of some description. So a bit of extra-curricular shagging is manageable.’

Don’t I know it . Edgar struggled to stifle a smile. ‘So — where does that leave us,’ he wondered if he sounded ever so slightly drunk, ‘in terms of the, ah, underlying issue?’

‘In the absence of anything else,’ O’Dowd told him, ‘the phone-hacking issue is still dominating the news agenda.’

‘Maybe we should do something about that,’ Edgar said.

‘Such as?’

‘I don’t know.’ This time Edgar Carlton did allow himself the merest grin. ‘Maybe we could go and bomb Syria or something.’

‘Anyway,’ O’Dowd continued, politely ignoring the infantile suggestion from his boss, ‘questions about press regulation, media ownership, the police, and relationships between politicians and journalists are not likely to go away. We all know where we are on this.’

‘After years of rumours,’ Miller chipped in, ‘the Sunday Witness newspaper has, as you know, finally admitted intercepting voicemail messages of prominent people to find stories. Zenger Corporation, the parent company, says this was the action of a few rogue members of staff who have since left the paper.’

‘As you would expect,’ said O’Dowd.

‘As you would expect,’ Miller agreed. ‘They claim that the problem has been dealt with, so there is no longer any hacking taking place.’

‘Meanwhile, the MPS has launched a series of investigations over the last few years. None of them have added up to much. That’s why we have to stick with Operation Redhead.’

‘Bloody Met,’ Edgar hissed. ‘They should have sorted this out years ago.’ In other words, before I became Prime Minister .

‘Decisive action is now required,’ O’Dowd persisted.

‘Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?’ Edgar snapped.

‘There’s decisive and there’s decisive . Sir Chester might have to go, even though it was not on his watch.’

‘The Commissioner!’ Edgar exclaimed. That was a bit close to home. Forsyth-Walker was a self-proclaimed ‘copper from the old school’ who, after an undistinguished career in the provinces, had been appointed to the top job in the Met by Christian Holyrod, in his capacity as Mayor of London. Edgar didn’t like the thought of such a senior figure having to fall on his sword. It gave people ideas.